Student leaders gather at Turlock campus for statewide summit

University students leaders from all over California were on the campus of California State University, Stanislaus on Saturday morning, as part of the annual California State Student Association summit meeting. The purpose of the summit was to allow student leaders from the 23 CSU campuses to come together and discuss issues that directly affect all 437,000 students of the CSU system.

Top issues at this year's summit included increasing enrollment and integrating technology into the classroom. One issue in particular that this year’s CSSA tackled was “bottlenecking,” or the increased difficulty of students to graduate on time due to lack of classes.

Last summer, the CSU Chancellor's Office allocated $10 million to the CSU system to address the bottleneck issue. The solution plan revolves around increase focus on online education, intersystem online courses and the restructuring of courses in an attempt to increase pass rates.

CSU Stanislaus Associated Student Inc. President Mariam Salameh said that it is important to have a statewide, multi-system approach in dealing with these issues.

“We’re finding other avenues,” said Salameh.

One of the avenues Salameh made reference too was the Intrasystem Concurrent Enrollment program introduced this fall. The system allows students to take courses on their own campuses while concurrently taking additional courses at other CSU campuses. The program has already submitted 180 full time CSU students.

“It is a great opportunity for students to start getting into the classes they need, but at a different university,” said Salameh. “We just need to make it more visible.”

Saturday’s event marked the first time that CSU Stanislaus has hosted the summit in over five years. University President Joe Sheley said that being able to host events like these allows students from other campuses to see what CSU Stanislaus and the city of Turlock have to offer.

“It’s always a very important thing for us to make sure that we get people throughout the system to see us first as a campus, second as a very attractive campus, and third as an asset,” said Sheley. “Anytime we can get folks here, it’s more than a pleasure.”